Paying for College: Lower Cost Degrees in Europe

University education is getting ever more expensive in Europe, but still is cheaper than in the U.S.: There’s more government support, the operating costs are lower and courses of study are sometimes shorter. In Europe, the three-year undergraduate degree or the one-year master’s degree is more common than here.

Dan Tepfer (Photo by David Yellen)

A master of international affairs at Columbia University carries a lot of prestige along with a price tag of $141,000, including living expenses, for the two years of study. The cheap alternative: a master’s degree at a European university where tuition fees are low and the program lasts a year.

Rachel Ferry, 23, a Virginia resident with a B.A. from Hobart & William Smith, is working on an international relations master’s at Durham University in northern England. Her cost, including living expenses, will be $40,000, and she will be out of the workforce for only a year.

Some employers would be more impressed with a two-year degree than a one-year degree. But Ferry intends to work for a government agency, where the distinction is less likely to matter.

Here’s another angle that works for the children of globe-trotting parents: dual citizenship.

Dan Tepfer’s parents were American expatriates living in Paris when he was born 31 years ago, and they arranged for him to get both European and U.S. passports. The E.U. citizenship got him a tuition-free bachelor’s degree from the University of Edinburgh. Now a Brooklyn, N.Y. jazz musician known for his improvisations on Bach, Tepfer has a tactical advantage over other concert performers: He can take gigs on two continents without applying for visas.

Consider this citizenship angle if you are offered a foreign assignment just when you are thinking about starting a family. But note that citizenship alone will not necessarily earn your kids a break. To qualify for the reduced tuition fee at Oxford or Cambridge, for example, a student has to live in the European Union for the last three years of high school.

Since Tepfer got his degree, tuition prices have gone up at Edinburgh, to $2,900 a year for EU citizens and $28,000 for foreigners.